Museum, Arts Center To Get $100,000

State Bonding Panel Supports Renovation Project

June 26, 2004|By ERIN WALSH; Courant Staff Writer

MARLBOROUGH — After 12 years of waiting, the Marlborough Arts Center and Museum is one step closer to becoming a reality.

The State Bond Commission approved a $100,000 grant for the museum Friday, which will be put toward developing the well and septic system, paving a parking lot and installing electricity and bathrooms in the more than 100-year-old structure where the center will be housed.

State Rep. Pam Sawyer, R-Bolton, who requested the grant from the Office of Policy and Management in March, said the museum would be a welcome addition to Marlborough.

``Small towns often don't have the funding for creative enrichment,'' she said. ``There's a lot of town support for this project.''

The two-level building, which features a porch and an oversize bay window on one side, will house art classes on the bottom floor and an art gallery and museum on the top floor.

The organizers of the museum call themselves MAC&M Inc. -- Marlborough Arts Center and Museum -- and have generated $285,000 toward the $500,000 goal through private fund-raising. The $100,000 grant makes the facility's opening more achievable, said Betty Keister, a former president of the committee.

Keister estimates the arts center and museum, which is intended for regional use, will open in 2005 or 2006. The center's programs will be open to residents from Columbia, East Haddam, Bolton, Hebron, Colchester, East Hampton, Andover and Coventry, said Mary Horrigan, the group's newly elected president.

The group purchased the 3,500-square-foot building in 1998 from the estate of Charles Hall for $35,000, which was below market cost. The building, which dates to about 1850, has had several incarnations. It was once a community center for textile mill employees, and most recently was a package store owned by Hall, volunteer Bill Harvey said. In dedication to Hall, the group has named the building the Charles W. Hall building, said Ethel Fowler, MAC&M's first president.

When the group purchased the building at 231 N. Main Street, it had to move it 110 feet to its current location. For the past four years, volunteers with backgrounds in carpentry and engineering have worked on the building two to four days a week in the warm weather. JWM Architects in Glastonbury guided the volunteers through the process of moving the building and bringing it up to date with building codes, Keister said.

Harvey, who lives across the street from the future museum, has worked for the past four years on various aspects of the building, ranging from carpentry, framing and siding to partitioning of rooms.

``It's coming along very well, but it's kind of slow,'' he said. ``It depends upon the guys involved. When you're getting volunteers involved, you take who you can get and kiss them on the cheek.''

Volunteer Zane Roberts, who was a carpenter for 50 years, said the project has really come to fruition during the four years he's been volunteering.

``It's an amazing transformation,'' he said. ``At the end of the summer, we'll be doing the clapboarding and the porch. It will look like a new building.''

Horrigan said she is excited that the end is in sight.

``We've been working very hard,'' she said, ``chipping away here and there with fund-raisers, and each one gave us enough money to make progress. This should be an exciting year.''